Traffic knows no limits and therefore, it is necessary to approach this field in a systematic and methodical manner, since 3,000 people dies in traffic on a daily basis at global level – this is one of the statements at the international conference ‘Traffic Safety in a Local Community’.

The Prime Minister of the Republic of Srpska, Mr Radovan Višković, said that the Republic of Srpska had reduced the number of road deaths by 33% in the last ten years, but that is was not enough to catch up with the rates of the developed European countries.

He pointed out that the Republic of Srpska Government would draft the new traffic safety strategy for the period from 2025 to 2034, whose primary aim would be to reduce the number of road deaths.

The Republic of Srpska Minister of the Interior, Mr Siniša Karan, said that the security of traffic participants was the concern of all of us. ‘This issue is not just the concern of the Ministry of Traffic and Communications, the Ministry of the Interior and other institutions, but also a concern of each individual. Therefore, the policy of traffic safety requires a comprehensive multidisciplinary approach of all factors: education institutions, not only those involved in training of future drivers, health institutions, companies for maintaining public roads, local communities, etc, to the Ministry of Traffic and Communications and the Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Srpska, including strategic government institutions’, Minister Karan said.

He pointed out that, from the beginning of the year, the total number of 16,000 minor offences in traffic had been recorded, and that more than 80% of the participants in traffic accidents were under the influence of alcohol, and that lately, there was the worrying trend of increasing number of participants in traffic under the influence of opiates.

Minister Karan reminded that the Ministry of the Interior had undertaken several preventive measures in the previous years, starting from stationary radars (there are more than 100 of them on the territory of the Republic of Srpska).

‘There are practically no traffic accidents on locations where stationary radars are positioned, especially not the serious ones and those that include fatal consequences, which is very good. Based on the same principle, we are developing a special programme ‘Safe city’, within which we have set up more than 1,000 cameras in our local communities, which proved to be very efficient. We have reduced the number of traffic accidents in local communities, and by solving the issue of traffic safety, we also reduced the scope of crime’, Minister Karan pointed out.

The Minister of Traffic and Communications of the Republic of Srpska, Mr Nedeljko Čubrilović, said that there was no point in raising the safety of roads on an even higher level, but that the awareness of people should also be raised. Therefore, the Ministry of Health was included, as well as the Ministry of the Interior, and the Government of the Republic of Srpska as an institution that coordinated all the activities.

The international conference ‘Traffic Safety in a Local Community’, held at the Administration Centre of the Republic of Srpska Government, is organised by the Ministry of Traffic and Communications and the Agency for Traffic Safety, and sponsored by the Republic of Srpska Government, the Council for Traffic Safety of the Republic of Srpska, and the European Transport Safety Council.